I’d Like to Write the World an Ad: A Compositional Analysis of Popular Jingles By: JJ Tyson Senior Honors Thesis Media and Journalism University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill April 5, 2018 Approved: ________________ © 2018 JJ Tyson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT JJ Tyson: I’d Like to Write the World an Ad: A Compositional Analysis of Popular Jingles (Under the direction of Lynn Owens) For nearly a century, advertisers have used music to communicate messages on behalf of companies. However, despite their prevalence as a marketing tool, very little research has been conducted on what makes jingles an effective means of reaching consumers. In 2010, Forbes magazine published a list of the “10 Greatest Jingles of All Time,” as voted on by a panel of C.M.Os. However, when they were asked what made these jingles “enduring”, the response was simply “sticking power.” This goal of this research is to elucidate what creates the “sticking power” found in a successful jingle. Through critical analysis of the lyrical, musical, and visual aspects of the ten jingle-based advertisements on the Forbes list, the goal of this thesis is two- fold; to clarify what elements these ten advertisements have in common, and to lay the groundwork for future research into the question, “What makes a good jingle?” To my mentor, friend, and inspiration Lynn Owens, who believed in me wholeheartedly from the beginning, and without whom this research would have never been possible. Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people who have guided me through my academic career, and helped me attain a level of personal and academic confidence I never thought possible. To Lois Boynton, whose boisterously personable demeanor gave me encouragement from my first day in JOMC 101, thank you. To Kevin Kearns, whose professional knowledge of advertising laid a foundation my success in the MJ School, thank you. To Leslie Frost, whose English class convinced me that Carolina was a place I could be consistently challenged and inspired, thank you. To Joann Sciarrino, whose unabashed love for analytics convinced me that numbers were to be embraced and conquered, not feared, thank you. To Barbara Friedman, whose belief in my topic and writing ability convinced me to proceed with my thesis, even when I wanted to quit, thank you. To Tim Carter, whose inexorable wit and passion for musical analysis inspired me to pursue this topic, thank you. To my parents, John and Elizabeth Tyson, whose support, both emotional and financial, allowed me to come to UNC in the first place, thank you. Finally, to Lynn Owens, who was willing to work with me before I had even chosen a topic, thank you. I owe all of you an enormous debt of gratitude, and hope you understand how sincerely I appreciate your impact on my personal and academic development. Preface Although it surprises me enormously, the fact that virtually no researcher in the history of academia has cared enough to study advertising jingles has not been shocking to many of my peers and professors. “Why bother?” one of them asked me between perplexed sips of coffee. “You’re won’t be able to find anything to write about,” someone else said. “Why would you waste your time studying that?” In answer to this question, I simply responded “Why study anything? To understand it better.” Jingles are an odd phenomenon, in that virtually everyone in the U.S. interacts with them, but rarely do people care to know how they work. Yet, from a young age, I’ve wondered about what makes jingles effective. Why do I think of State Farm when people mention the term “good neighbor?” Why does my mind leap to visions of Kit Kat bars every time someone uses the phrase “give me a break?” And why, for the love of all that is decent, do I know the phone number for Empire, an utterly unremarkable domestic flooring company? The answer is jingles. I don’t shop regularly for insurance or buy chocolate bars, and I certainly am not in the market for new carpeting. Yet, I find myself pondering these brands an inordinate amount given how little I need their products. So why study jingles? Perhaps because I have a genuine interest in the techniques they use to increase recall. Or perhaps I just want to stop buying so many Kit Kat bars. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: Literature Review…………………………………………………………………..6 Introductory Questions………………………………………………………….6 Early Research…………………………………………………………………..7 Reconsiderations………………………………………………………………..9 Counterpoints…………………………………………………………………..11 Hooked on Mnemonics………………………………………………………..12 Moving Forward………………………………………………………………..14 Chapter 3: Methods Setting a Precedent…………………………………………………..............15 Jingles as Popular Music…………………………………………….............16 For the Sake of Context……………………………………………………….19 Method of Analysis Object Selection……………………………….............20 List of Jingles to Be Analyzed……………………………………….............22 Chapter 4: Analysis Unity in Variety………………………………………………………………....23 “Key” Similarities……………………………………………………………….25 Repetition Repetition Repetition……………………………………………..27 Make ‘Em Laugh……………………………………………………………….33 In Defense of Sentiment…………………..…………………………………..44 Chapter 5: Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...48 References………………………...…………………………………………………………...51 Chapter 1 Introduction 800-588-2300. Nothing is particularly memorable about this set of digits. They do not correspond to a word, they do not form a numerical pattern, and they tell an audience nothing about who or what the number represents. And yet, all one has to do is begin to warble the 6-second melody associated with this phone number to suddenly find that a surprisingly large portion of the U.S. population has, willingly or otherwise, memorized this telephone number; some even have a fond sense of nostalgia for it. To be clear, Empire—the company with which the number is affiliated—is not an emergency hotline. It’s not an innovative or life-changing service. It is, in fact, a domestic flooring company, headquartered in Northlake, Illinois, that got its start as a distributor of industrial plastic coverings. Yet Empire's advertising has been featured prominently as a topic of discussion on the Ellen DeGeneres show. It’s been mentioned on multiple HGTV programs. It’s even been used as a gag on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (Kyles, 2006). The words “800-588-2300 … Empire,” and a six-second melody got a small flooring company the exposure that an international conglomerate would kill for. And they did it while actively ignoring every major trend in advertising for the past four decades. Before progressing further, it may be helpful to define what a jingle is. According to its denotative meaning, a jingle is "a short song that is easy to remember and that is used to help sell a product on television or radio." The earliest known jingle is thought to be a 1926 ditty from General Mills entitled "Have you Tried Wheaties". The social media age has thrown traditional advertising for a loop in virtually every aspect of the business, with consumer good companies now spending more on digital media than traditional ads for the first time (Neff, 2017). Advertising today is supposed to portray a company as being simultaneously sexy, ultra-modern, and socially relevant beyond the sphere of mere business. But somehow, Empire Carpet remains a major player in the industry in spite of what many would consider an antiquated publicity model. Other than exchanging their live-action spokesperson for a cartoon version in the mid-2000s, the company has not changed its strategy in over four decades. To make matters “worse” from a modern ad perspective, the music from the advertisement is not even remotely contemporary in sound, and never has been. To a consumer in the Facebook era, the jingle sounds distinctly antiquated. The brief melody is presented by a mixed chorus singing acapella in close harmony, evoking a style characteristic of Big Band-era vocal groups like The Pied Pipers. The final nail in the coffin should be the group’s stage name; the jingle’s singers called themselves “The Fabulous Forties.” In short, by modern ad standards, there should be nothing cool, sexy, or chic about the Empire or its 40-year-old jingle. And yet, last year, Empire Today’s estimated revenues topped $600 million. They’ve routinely been ranked one of the best flooring suppliers in the nation, and continue to be a major player in the industry. Empire is a case study in successful use of original music in advertising. However, cases like Empire are not as common as they once were. A recent trend in advertising which has threatened the very existence of the television jingle is the advent of pop-music licensing. At one time, many artists in the popular sphere considered the idea of selling their song to a corporation to be the antithesis of artistic intent. After all, what could be more commercialized than allowing a piece of one’s own music to be literally turned into a commercial for a product (Sanburn, 2012). Such was the case when famed 1980s group The Police, to great publicity, turned down a company’s offer to use the song “Don’t Stand so Close to Me” in a deodorant ad. The band members claimed it would have made a mockery of what they held to be expressive art (Hunter, 1999). However, all one has to do is examine the ads airing during the 2017 Super Bowl to realize the marked absence of original music used in current TV ads. Kia’s Niro spots were scored with the 80s hit, “I Need a Hero,” GoDaddy made use of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” and PepsiCo utilized John Legend’s “Love Me Now.” In short, there’s been a paradigm shift; musicians no longer view it as artistically disingenuous to allow their work to be used in commercials.